OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Mysterious Paula Castle!

 

Welcome, music sluts and slutinos to another edition of Manor Music Monday, today with several dollops of mystery, intrigue and wait, what? Let me explain. As you may know, there are countless jazz vocalists from the mid-to-late 1950s who are lost to time, and I'm not talking about the already-established, like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday or Peggy Lee. I'm talking about the up-and-comers who were inspired as children by those giants of jazz, and come the 1950s, were at last ready to make their own mark. 

Many didn't get the chance, and others, who released one or two LPs, suddenly had the plug pulled, their dreams abruptly dashed. The cause of all this? The rise of rock n' roll, a force so sensational, so overwhelmingly popular, that it changed the music landscape overnight. And forever. Who wants to hear the new jazz vocalist, the record companies figured, when you can sign that rising rock 'n roller who's firing up all the kids at the club?  Newbie jazz artists and vocalists without a proven track record were dropped from their labels in droves, or the labels went belly up. The subtleties of jazz, no matter how lively or engaging, could never hope to compete against the blowtorch bravado of rock and pop. They still can't. 

It's in this atmosphere that many new jazz artists of the era weren't just dropped, they were completely forgotten. And so tonight at the Manor's exclusive "Bra-Free Tunes and Tamales Dinette and Lounge," DJ Li'l Scratch is going to introduce us to one of his favorite bygone crooners known as Paula Castle. Behold, these are the only halfway decent pictures to be found of her: 

Talk about little verifiable information! Here's what's known: Paula grew up on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the 1940s, then signed deals with two record companies, both of which went bankrupt before she could even lay down some tracks. The times were not on her side. And unfortunately, when she finally did record in 1955 - "Lost Love," an 8 track EP from the indie Bethlehem label - her career was already over, steamrolled, like so many others, by rock 'n' roll and perhaps her own life's twists and turns. "Lost Love" received no meaningful promotion from Bethlehem and was promptly consigned to oblivion. Supposedly, Paula's now living in happy old age in Upstate New York, but who can say for sure? Other sources claim she passed in 2011.

Whatever the case, Paula has a warmly ingratiating voice with an impressive range, able to soar high like a bird and dip quite low with equal finesse, as in “Mountain Getaway" below, which includes kicky work from accompanying bebop jazz flutist, Sam Most. Some compare her to Chris Conner, and while I can hear that given her relaxed style and surgically precise phrasing, Paula, I think, has more interpretive depth, especially on the ballads, which compromise most of the tracks here. Wherever Paula is, in Upstate New York or in Cloudland, she's well worth cherishing.

To hear the rest of Paula's LP, go RIGHT HERE.

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Bethlehem Records; Getty Images